The Great Railway Revival - in China, Australia - Brief Article

Business Asia, July, 2001 by Tim Fischer

AT THE START OF THE 21st Century, two huge railway projects are about to unfold -- the great railway to Lhasa Tibet, ultimately from Beijing, and the Alice Springs/Darwin Railway project -- ultimate connection Melbourne to Darwin.

After 100 years of railway track being ripped up around the world, particularly in Australia and Britain but also in parts of Asia and China, the revival of rail is taking place in earnest. It is happening for various reasons, but particularly because of the greenhouse advantage conferred by rail along with general strategic and transport advantages.

It should never be forgotten that a steel wheel on a steel rail has one-seventh of the friction of a rubber-tyred wheel on a bitumen surface. Let me hasten to add this does not mean there is no role for road in a modern, efficient transport mix. The very best advantages occur when there is a combination of both road and rail with seamless road rail transfer.

Now large land mass countries such as China and Australia are investing large amounts in rail renewal and expansion, and this follows on from the huge rail project completed last decade from Mumbai direct to Goa on the west coast of India, and completed in the Indian uni gauge or extreme broad gauge of 5'6".

In China, Premier Zhu recently announced a new standard gauge railway line be built from the existing system just west of Cheng Du across frozen plateaus and high mountains to Lhasa Tibet at over 3000 metres altitude. This line will have to cross a perma ice plateau and will present many challenges to railway engineers, but as has been shown over the decades, railway engineers have a capacity to conquer inhospitable terrain. Whilst the railway might make transport logistical sense and defence security sense, there is deep-seeded concern that it will be used as a weapon of a different kind.

It is possible that the impact of the railway on the social front will be massive, with many Han Chinese flooding into Tibet, and by weight of sheer numbers and economic development squeeze out Tibetans and Tibetan culture.

All of this remains to be seen, and certainly it is unlikely that the great Tibetan Railway project will break even. But it is wrong to prejudge outcomes, and in any event it will be many years before the project is completed.

Here in Australia, after a delay of some 80 years, work has now commenced on the Alice Springs/Darwin standard gauge track. At long last, a railway line is being built north-south across Australia, and with the capacity to turn a profit both on modern rail road freight operation, but also to some extent with passenger operation as well.

Asia Pacific Transport and the related South Australian Government Agency, Partners in Rail, calculate that if just two per cent of the Melbourne export container traffic is diverted onto rail to Darwin than by fast ship to Singapore, it will be a viable project. Given the fact that 20 per cent of all export containers through the Port of Melbourne currently go to Singapore, this is a reasonable ask. These same studies also calculate that some three-quarters of domestic traffic to and from southern Australia to the Northern Territory economy will also need to go by rail.

Given the fact that the Nullarbor east-west corridor is currently delivering over three-quarters of the transport task by rail, this is an achievable estimate.

All in all, the 21st Century will see a great rail revival in direct contrast to the 20th Century, which saw so much rail track ripped up. So perhaps it is a case of all aboard for the Golden Ghan through to Darwin, or the Great Marco Polo Express from Beijing to Lhasa, or ultimately the Singapore to London Talgo Express -- capable of swapping gauges!

Postscript: The author declares that he is in the process of being formally appointed Special Envoy to the Adelaide/Alice Springs/Darwin Railway Project but does not yet formally hold that position. Over the years the author has served on many transport committees in the New South Wales State Parliament and the Federal Parliament.